Can someone be both for the Dream Act, but also for tough immigration laws

[fried eggs]

including, support for deportation if someone is found to be in the country illegally?

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Dream Act kids are here illegally

If they're deported, why have the Dream Act?

[patrice]

4. Doesn't the Dream Act apply to people who became citizens by birth? As provided for under

the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

Their parents may be here illegally, wherever they came from, but if you are born here, you are a citizen. These people have been limited by the circumstances of their illegal families, whom they fear to expose to legal consequences if they get noticed for whatever reason.

[patrice]

6. Okay, Dream Act is not for birth-right citizens, but the 14th Amendment is being attacked

because of the Dream Act.

From Aug 4, 2010:

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2010/08/04/176200/citizenship-fourteenth-amendment/

Recently, the Republican Party has been rallying around a new effort to potentially repeal provisions of the 14th amendment which automatically grant citizenship to those born in the U.S. Despite the media attention the GOP is generating, few reporters have reminded their audiences of one major procedural hurdle involved: getting two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the states to support an amendment to repeal part of the Constitution. Given the fact that it’s unlikely that such an amendment would get very far, it begs the question of why lawmakers like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), and others, are proposing the Senate Judiciary Committee waste its time by organizing hearings on the topic. The truth is it likely boils down to two things: riling up their base before November’s midterm elections and creating a toxic environment to kill any chance of the DREAM Act passing if and when it is introduced this fall.

...

Based on estimations, the DREAM Act would potentially put a little under a million undocumented youth who were brought here at a young age by their parents and meet certain requirements on a path to legalization. The usual right-wing anti-immigrant talking points simply don’t hold up as well when talking about the DREAM Act. It’s much more difficult to argue that “DREAMers” are lawbreakers who are being rewarded for coming here illegally to take jobs from U.S. citizens when they were brought to the U.S. by their parents and, through no fault of their own, invested in by the U.S. education system and raised as Americans.

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Yes

I agree with the administration's policy of sending back drug dealers to their home countries so they aren't being fed, sheltered, etc. etc. for example - on the California Tax Payers dollar.

I was in Belize in April and we made friends with a nice elderly gentleman - Mr. Elvis. We spoke of the crime in Belize City - as it had ramped up in the past year or two.

He clued us in on how the deportation policy from the US was sending back the bad apples.

So if we do that - so that we can have the DREAM act - then I'm 100% for deportations for the bad apples while we keep the innovators, scientists, idea people who had no choice in whether or not they came here as a kid.

[patrice]

3. We have good immigration laws on the books. That those laws have to do with IL-LEGAL

Last edited Fri Sep 21, 2012, 04:04 PM - Edit history (1)

EMPLOYERS should be at least as onerous as what they have to do with illegal immigrants.

That is not the case.

Illegal employers benefit in vast ways from illegal employees and get a slap on the wrist IF caught that apparently is not enough to prevent them from doing what they are doing and taking advantage of other Americans, while abusing the vulnerabilities of illegal immigrants, as many of them also avoid taxes.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

8. Precisely, Mos Isley (TM - me!) - I've been saying the above till I'm blue in the face

All the laws needed to inforce immigration are already on the books. Primarily, the employers have all the means necessary to ensure they are only employing those who are legally authorized. That's why we have I-9s and E-Verify (which is still a voluntary program in a lot of states).

If we stifle the labor 'demand' of sleazy employers who are willing to hire people who are not lawfully authorized to work in the U.S. - often so that they can pay lower wages and offer no or substandard benefits - then we will stifle the 'supply' of people who are not authorized to work.

The fine per each unauthorized worker is $10,000. Most of the employers who hire knowingly unauthorized workers are U.S.-based in fields such as agriculture, landscaping services, poultry, farming, restaurants, hotels and other low-skilled and low-wage industries. They know exactly what they are doing.

The laws are already on the books.

As to the OP, yes - one can be pro-DREAM Act and against illegal immigration. I am one such example. The DREAM Act protects the children of those who are unauthorized to stay in the U.S. (whether by illegally entering or overstaying a visa). It is a broader application of what the President authorized recently (that is, granting a two-year deferred action reprieve as well as employment authorization to these children who fit certain criteria of eligibility).

Although I don't see how practicable or cost-efficient it would be to suddenly deport millions of people, I also see the other side of the coin: it is taking longer and longer for legal immigrants - those who follow the rules and pay the hundreds of dollars and compile the hundreds of forms - to get anywhere. It is taking nearly 20 years for certain people who are seeking permanent residence based on being the brother or sister of a U.S. citizen (the lowest family-based category).

For the average foreign professional who is already working in the U.S. on a non-immigrant visa (H, L, O, E, etc.), it is taking 5 or more years to obtain permanent residence. If their country of birth is China, India, Mexico or the Philippines, waiting times get longer.

Before we fix the illegal immigration problem, we should fix the legal immigration problem. If suddenly we were to provide amnesty, you can bet many legal immigrants would feel marginalized and treated unfairly.

[ocean of bliss]

12. And in that list of EMPLOYERS

please add HOMEOWNERS who want to shave off $10 a week from their landscaping bill.

Or...people who hire cleaning ladies who cannot speak English. They may speak Polish or Spanish but you know that they are most likely undocumented.

Or...allow contractors (roofing, construction, housepainting) to show up with a crew of non-English speakers. The contractor may have come and given you an estimate but homeowners need to make it clear that they want Americans on the job. Believe me when I tell you there are plenty of people born on this soil who would gladly do these jobs but they are being passed over by the glut of illegals. It's not always about pay, either. One guy I know indirectly was making over $20 an hour. But some make $12 (and that meme about them making LESS than min. wage is an urban myth, by the way) although they will work 12-hour days, 6 days a week. So they are considered "superior" workers. Because Americans would like a more normal work day, their work ethici is questioned.

The Dream Act, like amnesty before it in 1986 (under the master of union-busting and production-destruction, Ronnie Raygun) only ENCOURAGES illegal immigration.

[patrice]

13. I agree with that, except that the Dream Act affects only a very specifically limited number of

illegals. As I quoted from the Think Progress article above, the Dream Act cohort is appx. 1 million persons, because they are the illegal immigrants up to age 35 who arrived in the United States before age 16, i.e. who became illegal without regard for their own will in the matter, and who will/or have also completed two years of college.

This is a demographically interesting group relative to the rest of the illegals in our country, because they are the nexus between other generations of illegals, who are not elligible for the Dream Act and are, thus, threatened by it.

The fact that the Dream Act cohort is defined as it is is one of the reasons that we can expect some members of that illegal immigrant community, that is the generations behind and ahead of the Dream cohort, to ally with those who oppose the Dream Act and which anti-Dream Act illegals, thus, support the behaviors of illegal employers and illegal employees which you sketch and which deserve somekind of just non-violent resolution, not "self deportation" motivated by the ARMED threats of those who are double-crossing them and USING them against people like you.

[leftstreet]

5. Open the borders - we want Canadian healthcare n/t

[1StrongBlackMan]

7. Absolutely ...

Last edited Fri Sep 21, 2012, 02:22 PM - Edit history (1)

The "Dreamers" are a distinct cohort of "illegal" immigrants ... They came here as minors, generally with their parent(s).

In order to qualify for the deferral, they must (among other things) be in (or recently graduated from) school or in (or recently discharged from) the military, and in either case, must not have been convicted of any felony or major misdeamnor.

I fully support deportation of any undocumented immigrant that has been convicted of any felony or major misdeamnor ... but support equally, a path to citizenship for any and all undocumented immigrants, currently in the country and willing to register for that path to citizenship, where refusal to register would subject the person to deportation, when caught.

[patrice]

9. Well said!

[1StrongBlackMan]

10. Thank you, but ...

I editted my post to say that an undocumented person that refuses to register for the path to citizenship, would be subject to deportation.

[patrice]

11. Why would that be a problem? It is what the law says, isn't it? nt

[1StrongBlackMan]

14. Currently ...

There is no path to citizen for those undocumented that are curently in the country. If they attempted to gain citizenship under the current law, the vast majority would have to return to their country of origin (or claim some exemption) and wait out the process (that is currently taking 5+ years).

[lunamagica]

15. I agree with this

How can anyone even think that Dreamers were born here?

[1StrongBlackMan]

16. I don't know if I understand; but ...

The dreamers are not the same as those born here to undocumented immigrants. Those born here are citizens ... point ... regardless of what those that refer to them as "anchor babies" would say.

[lunamagica]

17. Right. Those kids born here are full American citizens, with the same rights as any other citizen

why would they need any special laws, permits or anything like that?

[treestar]

18. Yes, though a DREAM ACT kid's parents

would be deported, so it would follow one should be supportive of full path to citizenship for the DREAMER